SCO multimodal transport trading market opens in Qingdao

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Multimodal Transport Trading Market was put into operation on April 24 in Jiaozhou, a county-level city in Qingdao, Shandong province.

Located in Jiaozhou Bay International Logistics Park, the market is designed to build an intelligent container and cargo scheduling platform for China-Europe freight trains, an assembly center for cross-border e-commerce, and an intelligent regional commodity trading and delivery center.

The market covers an area of 14.2 hectares with a total investment of 320 million yuan ($48.83 million). Its first phase started construction in September 2021 and has been completed and is now operational. An intelligent logistics system for the operation of the trading market has also been built.

The second phase is expected to be completed and put into operation by the end of the year. It will build a warehouse facility of 46,000 square meters using the railway dedicated line, which will be used for the warehousing of the China-Europe freight train cross-border e-commerce assembly center.

In a bid to contribute to the development of the China-SCO demonstration zone for local economic and trade cooperation, the trading market will also build a sea-rail transportation cross-border e-commerce consumer goods distribution center and an international express delivery center for Central Asia, China and Russia, and Central Europe.

It will help transform traditional trade in goods into high-end trade in services, and facilitate the iterative upgrading of the "super-port" which integrates transport, trade and production. Once it is put into operation, it will drive an annual trade volume of $450 million, local officials said.